Steve Bannon: ‘America Was Built on Her Citizens’

Breitbart News Executive Chairman Steve Bannon laid out his stance on immigration in an exchange with Charlie Rose on CBS’s 60 Minutes Sunday evening, saying that American citizens were the ones who built this country from its founding.

Bannon said that we have to “focus on American citizens” when Rose criticized Bannon’s position on immigration, saying that he seems to want to put an end to it.

“You seem to want to turn it around and stop it,” Rose claimed.

“You couldn’t be more dead wrong,” Bannon said. “America was built on her citizens.”

“We’re all immigrants,” Rose countered.

“America was built on her…,” Bannon began to say before Rose interrupted.

“Except the Native Americans who were here,” Rose interjected.

Bannon gathered his thoughts before he clarified his statement.

“This is the thing of the leftists. Charlie, that’s beneath you. America’s built on our sys– on our citizens,” he said.

Bannon referred to the 19th century, when America went through a period of industrialization and western expansion as an example of how American citizens built this country’s “protectionist” economy, industry, and national defense.

He cited Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, President Abraham Lincoln, and the Roosevelts as examples of American citizens who helped this country grow.

“The American system, from Hamilton to Polk to Henry Clay to Lincoln to the Roosevelts” built “a system of protection of our manufacturing, financial system that lends to manufacturers, okay, and the control of our borders.”

Bannon also mentioned that our nation does not just protect the privileged.

He added that the U.S. looks after citizens of “every nationality, every race, every religion, [and] every sexual preference.”